TALKS WITH SILVIA - CARAVAN MADE

Caravan Made was born from an object. A 70's caravan that appeared one Monday and changed everything. A mix of passion, a certain recklessness, and youth.

Silvia has always spoken about Caravan Made as if it were a way of life rather than a business. What began with a 1970s caravan and a strong desire to create something of their own eventually became one of those projects that grew alongside the more spontaneous side of Barcelona’s early street food scene.

Over the years, Caravan Made has evolved into the team behind some of the most beautiful corporate events and weddings, always guided by a deeply personal approach to food and hospitality. In this conversation, we talk with Silvia about intuitive beginnings, ephemeral events, motherhood, shared meals, and her very particular way of understanding things: honest, warm, and made with time.

What do you think those kinds of beginnings have in common, the ones that happen before you’re ever truly ready?

Those kinds of beginnings definitely come from a mix of passion, a certain sense of naivety, and the fact that we were young at the time: full of enthusiasm and with nothing to lose.

So yes, it all came from a strong motivation and a real passion to create our own project with the few resources we had. There was also a certain innocence about what building a food truck business actually involved. But until you live it yourself, you simply don’t know.

At that time, we had no idea what kinds of markets we could even attend because street food markets barely existed yet, aside from local town festivals. We certainly weren’t thinking about catering either, mostly because we didn’t even know how that kind of business worked. It wasn’t something we had experienced firsthand before.

We saw the caravan more as a kind of traveling restaurant, something that felt more familiar to us since we had both worked in hospitality and restaurants. But we had no idea what we were about to face or where it would eventually take us.

You were part of Barcelona’s very first street food markets when the movement was still new. What do you remember about that Barcelona in 2013?

I remember a much more spontaneous and close-knit Barcelona. In 2013, street food was just beginning, and no one really knew what was going to happen with it all. There was something really beautiful about feeling like we were all building something new together, guided mostly by intuition and excitement.

The markets were small, very familiar, and it was almost always the same projects attending them. In the end, you got to know everyone: the other food trucks, the organizers, the customers who kept coming back to every market… There was a very warm and human atmosphere.

Barcelona also felt much more local back then. There weren’t as many international concepts or large chains yet, and people were genuinely curious to discover new things. We had traveled a lot and had seen markets in London, Berlin, and California, where certain ideas already existed, while here they still felt completely new.

And I think that’s what made that time so special: things were driven more by passion than by strategy. There was a lot of improvisation, a lot of excitement, and a constant sense of discovery. You could feel it both in the projects themselves and in the people coming to the markets.

There’s something inherently ephemeral about events that makes them different from restaurants. The space is set up, people arrive, and afterward nothing remains except the memory. How do you approach something so temporary with such care, knowing it has to live on as a memory? How do you carry that responsibility?

I think that’s actually what we love most about events: the fact that they’re temporary and unique. Despite all the different projects we’ve worked on over the years, events are what have truly remained at the core of Caravan Made. We love that fleeting aspect, the constant change, the challenge of creating something unique every single time. Even though it’s often more complicated, it’s exactly what we enjoy most about our work.

Every event is genuinely its own project. We put so much care into them because we know they’ll become unforgettable for those who experience them, precisely because they only happen once.

We’re also motivated by the adrenaline of creating something we’ve never done before. Even if it’s in the same venue or with the same recipes, every event ends up being different because the client changes and so do countless external factors.

In the end, every event becomes unique, fleeting, and special. That’s what keeps us moving. We know it comes with a lot of responsibility, but we experience it with genuine excitement.

You’ve said motherhood changed everything in terms of organization. But in projects like yours, there’s also something about passing things on — values, ways of doing things. Do you think about that? What will Jana and Nord see in Caravan Made as they grow up?

Motherhood changed everything. Without a doubt, it marked a before-and-after for us. It pushed us to make many internal changes, both professionally and within the company itself. Of course, all for the better, even if there were difficult moments along the way.

Jana and Nord have grown up with Caravan Made and have experienced it from a very young age. They’ve witnessed many stages and many transformations.

They’ve visited our caravan, our kitchen studio, and some of the events we’ve worked on. They’ve immersed themselves in this whole world and have seen how much we genuinely enjoy what we do.

And I think that’s something beautiful, too: for them to see how important it is to enjoy your work, to feel happy doing what you do, and to seek something that truly motivates and fulfills you.

They also love tasting things, cooking with us, discovering ingredients and new flavors… and that makes us incredibly happy because, in the end, food is also a way of sharing, caring, and creating memories.

Is there one dish or recipe that feels more representative of who you are than any other? Not necessarily the most popular one, but the one that contains the most of yourselves.

If I had to think of one recipe, and especially if I think back to the caravan and street food days, I’d say the Ginger Pork, which was our very first sandwich. It was also inspired by the markets we had visited in London, back when pulled pork restaurants and similar concepts didn’t yet exist here. We had discovered it there, loved it, and wanted to reinterpret it in our own way.

It wasn’t exactly pulled pork as such, but rather shredded pork with ginger and apple. And it became one of our first truly authentic and personal recipes.

Later on, once we moved into catering, I’d say the menu style that best defines us is Family Style. It was the format of the very first weddings we catered, and it’s still the approach that feels the most natural and representative of who we are.

It’s a menu built around dishes meant for sharing, with simple yet carefully crafted recipes using high-quality seasonal ingredients: salads, sides, grilled meats, and fish.

I think that menu perfectly defines our style both as a catering company and as a business overall, and it truly represents what Caravan Made is today.